27
SO COMPLETELY IN THE HANDS OF FATE
Sheila had known Georgia Sitwell since the mid-1920s, as an acquaintance rather than a central figure in her broad social life. Georgia was the Canadian wife of Sacheverell Sitwell, the youngest of the famous literary Sitwell siblings (he and his sister Edith and his brother Osbert had set London alight in the twenties with their avant-garde poetry). Although Georgia was nine years younger than Sheila, they were kindred spirits in many ways.
The Sitwells were among a set in which Cecil Beaton and Evelyn Waugh were prominent; they and their close friends explored life and art, forever recorded by Beaton’s photographs, which were published in magazines like Vogue, as if he were mapping a social phenomenon. In their sexual activities they ignored the conventional bounds of marriage and gender. Georgia married “Sachie” in 1925 and, despite their numerous affairs, they remained married and she had two sons by him.
Georgia was not unlike Sheila in many ways—an exotic foreigner who had married into the imposing rigours of London society, and yet someone who was able to retain her individuality. In the 1996 book The Sitwells, she was described as “tall, slim and dark-haired with slightly olive skin and wide spaced hazel-green eyes. She had beautiful legs, fine ankles and an attractively husky voice. She was down to earth, highly sexed . . . warm-hearted, loyal, vital and amusing.” They may as well have been describing Sheila.
The short letter of condolence she had sent to Sheila after Peter’s death seems to have drawn their friendship closer, at least on Georgia’s part: she kept among her personal effects a series of letters written by Sheila through the early war years as Sheila struggled with being alone while her surviving son, Tony, fought in Europe and Buffles, an RAF Wing Commander, was moved around the country, from the balloon squadron in Surrey to an anti-gas school in Wiltshire, an island base off Sussex and even an RAF facility at Filey in Yorkshire which had been commandeered from the partly completed Butlin’s Holiday Camp.
She also had to cope with the death of her mother, Margaret, who had finally passed away in March 1940, which only heightened her sense of isolation. To compound matters, her brother Roy would die in 1944.
By 1940 Sheila had largely abandoned the home in Hamilton Terrace, St John’s Wood, with its four live-in staff, and moved through a series of homes and country hotels, from the rugged and beautiful southern coast of Cornwall to the rolling hills of the Peak District in the north. This was as far from city life as she could get, trading the glitz and glamour of the restaurants and ballrooms for the boring safety of home-cooked meals and small dinner parties, interspersed with volunteer work.
In mid-1941 she made the move permanent by selling the St John’s Wood house, which had become uninhabitable after being “peppered” by a German air strike. Instead, she bought the stables and hayloft at the back of a large country property on the fringes of the village of Bracknell about an hour’s drive west of London.
She bought the structure initially as a place to store their spare furniture from the Hamilton Terrace house as it was emptied but Sheila fell in love with the area and commissioned an architect to turn it into a large country home. Brook House, as she would name the property, was set back from the main road among sprawling lawns and gardens that would provide her with a sanctuary when the city became too dangerous, so she would not have to keep moving from hotel to hotel and friend to friend.
She also began working as a nurse for the local Women’s Voluntary Service—“a small fish in a large pond”—and, later, running a “Welcome Club” for incoming American soldiers who began arriving in their thousands in the latter years of the war: “I shall always remember them with affection—their gaiety, generosity, courage and helpfulness and the fun they made out of nothing. I can hear the village children asking: ‘Any gum, chum?’ They always got some.”
As she buried herself in volunteer war work, Sheila disappeared from the pages of newspapers like the Daily Mirror and the Daily Express, which had once published her social deeds several times a week. Very occasionally there would be a mention of her “being seen” strolling in Hyde Park on the arm of her husband, home on leave, but there were no reports of dances and restaurant appearances. As one would expect, wartime austerity had taken its toll on the social whirl of London and restaurants, which once hummed with high-profile customers, were reduced to marketing their past appearances.
The Normandie Grill in Knightsbridge, whose wartime offerings highlighted “wafer-thin minute steak”, boiled broccoli and new potatoes, was so desperate to promote its new general manager, who went by the name Sofrani, that it mentioned he used to run the Blue Train Nightclub in Mayfair before adding: “Lady Milbanke was one of the hostesses associated with this club”.
A few of her friends, like Lady Diana Cooper, opted to stay in London, moving out of their homes and into hotels like the Dorchester overlooking Hyde Park, which had been opened in 1931 and was advertised as one of the safest buildings in London, with reinforced concrete walls and “gas-proof shelter”. But most found sanctuary in the country, like Freda, now the Marquesa de Casa Maury, who moved to Plymouth.
This exodus had long been predicted by politicians like Winston Churchill who, as early as 1934, had reckoned that German bombing raids would kill half a million Londoners and send another 4 million scurrying into the country, where they would need shelter, food and clothes. Sheila, who counted Churchill among her acquaintances, took heed and left London before the bombs began to fall.
The relative closeness of her relationship with the prime minister is clear from a letter she wrote to him in July 1945, after he lost the post-war election. Churchill, who had gone to school with Sir John’s father, kept her missive and it would remain among his personal papers:
Dear Winston,
I feel I had to write to you because I am completely astounded and shattered by the result of the election. The only bright spot is how enjoyable they are going to be as opposition!! I hope you got the card I sent you from Buffles. I have just heard he will be out on 9th August. Perhaps we could all meet sometime soon because you are his Godfather also! I wish I could express what I feel about the whole beastly business but unfortunately I can’t.
Yours,
Sheila Milbanke
Her wartime life, particularly during the first few years before Brook House was built, was transient. Summer holidays were no longer trips to wealthy resorts across Europe or the United States but a series of carefully planned movements from friend to friend and village to village, tolerating the inevitable delays of a transport system hampered by makeshift staffing and targeted bombing raids. She ventured to the city only occasionally, to meet her husband or son when they had leave, as can be seen from a series of letters she wrote to Georgia Sitwell, who was living in the city, through 1940 and 1941:
North Cornwall
December 18, 1940
Darling Georgia,
Thank you so much for your very sweet letters. If it would not be too inconvenient for you, could I possibly come to you on December 28 for a few days?
I long to be near Tony for the New Year and I have the chance of a lift all the way from here by car. I don’t mind at all where I sleep—and would be ever so grateful if you would have me then—I have no clothes—and will probably arrive in an old pair of trousers.
Cheshire
January 9, 1941
Darling Georgia—just a line to let you know that I don’t think I should get to Northampton before you go on 20th. Elizabeth can’t have me till after the 16th—as she has Johnnie and Peter Wallace with her—so as travelling is so awful by train I shall stay in those parts and go to Northampton on my way south. I am very comfortable and happy here—and there are lots of people all round. Poppy lunched here yesterday and am going into Chester tomorrow . . . the days fly—so much love to you.
March 22, 1941
Darling Georgia—thank you so much for your letters and wire. I’m so looking forward to seeing
you next Wednesday. I shall go by train from Crewe to Rugby—arrive Rugby at 5.20 so order a taxi to meet me there. Am going to Portia on Monday for one night—coming back here Tuesday—and then on to you Wednesday—I hope you can get out of your meetings at Oxford—but if you can’t I shall be quite okay.
I saw Peter yesterday—Poppy is making whoopie in the south again. Much love darling.
Sheila
Jollywinds
May 2
Darling Georgia—I hope you are not in a rage with me and I have not just put out all your plans by not being here next week. I have several reasons which I shall proceed to tell you. Tony probably told you we were thinking of getting a small home near Ascot and moving the furniture from Hamilton Terrace as I feel it is madness to leave it there and it costs me £600 per annum not living there and I can’t afford this house after September—as Buffie has had to cut down my marriage settlement owing to property being bombed in the city. So I must go at once and try and find a suitable house—as you know no one else can ever do those things for one.
Travelling from here at the moment is awful owing to the lines having been blown up so often outside Plymouth—the trains are anything up to 6 hours late—and sometimes they don’t go at all. It is not advisable to travel by night at the moment and I am dreading the long day journey up next week (above nine or 10 hours under present conditions). Please come back with me if you can—and stay at least 10 days—it is cold here at the moment—but the weather should be lovely at the end of May—and the wildflowers are then beautiful beyond description.
Will write you where I am staying in London—Much love darling—what a boring letter but I want you to understand all my difficulties.
Sheila
But there were also new friendships and, as usual, Sheila had an impact on the men she met. One was an Irishman she would refer to as “Buck” in a letter to Georgia and would refer to in her memoir. He was a friend of the Duke of Sutherland and met Sheila in Cornwall. Although she and Buffles, or Buffie as she referred to him, remained married and saw each other from time to time, they had gone their separate ways in many respects—a marriage in name only—hence the comment about her marriage settlement.
Sheila was clearly attracted to Buck as she was to Stuart Symington, and felt free to act because of Buffles’ decision to continue seeing other women. She was lonely and the attentions of the handsome Irishman were hard to resist: “Buck’s hair was blue-black, he had the longest black eyelashes I have ever seen and he was tall and very thin.” They sat on a Cornwall beach and watched the sunset, “a fat red ball sinking into the sea”, and watched to see if they could spy a green flash at the last moment, which was deemed to be good luck: “They called it the ‘Green Man’ and I saw it twice.”
“Buck and I often talked of my Peter. I found that one couldn’t talk easily to many people about him . . . I grew to love the planes and the RAF uniforms—they all became muddled up with Peter.”
Her grief over Peter’s death naturally stirred fears about her elder son, Tony, and in her desperation, she tried to secure his safety by arranging a staff position—from the King. On December 19, 1940, a few weeks after Buckingham Palace was badly damaged in a German air raid, she penned a letter to her former flame which remains in the Royal Archives at Windsor:
Sir,
I have been wanting to write to you ever since Buckingham Palace was bombed because I thought of you all so much & to tell you how wonderful everybody thinks you & the Queen have been and are being.
I have had many letters from America, saying that when you both appear on the screen at a cinema the people go crazy and cheer and scream.
I thought of writing for your birthday and have at last decided to write & wish you all a very happy Christmas & much happiness for 1941.
It seems incredible that a year has passed since you and the Queen were so sweet and sympathetic to me about Peter.
You said then that someday perhaps you could help me about Tony. He got his commission to the 60th Rifles last June & has since been transferred to the 1st Battalion Queen Victoria Rifles. I dread the thought that he may go abroad next year when they are fully trained.
I know it is awful of me when everybody else has suffered such fearful loss too, but he is really the only thing I have got in the world. I suppose he is too young (23) to be attached to you in any way? Or failing that get a job as ADC to some general in England. Please forgive me for writing to you like this and never tell anyone (except the Queen) because Tony would never speak to me again if he knew.
I have taken this house for the moment as I have not been at all well but hope to go north after Christmas and spend the year with Tony.
Please be very kind and think this over if you have a moment—which you probably haven’t!
Again, so many fond wishes for 1941. I have the honour to be Your Majesty’s most obedient servant.
Sheila Milbanke
There is no record of the King’s answer but at any rate, Tony would not spend the war in an office job; rather he would rise to the rank of captain with the King’s Royal Rifle Corps and then join the GHQ Liaison Regiment, better known as Phantom, whose role it was to gather battlefield information during military operations to provide “real-time” assessments from the front line. He was later attached to the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division and was mentioned in despatches in 1944 for meritorious action.
As well as Buck, there were many other new friendships which emerged for Sheila during the war years; among them was Daphne Vivian, the Marchioness of Bath, who had run wildly with the Bright Young Things—something she played down in her later memoir, which would be described by Evelyn Waugh in his memoir as “marred by discretion and good taste . . . as though Lord Montgomery were to write his life and omit to mention that he ever served in the army”.
Daphne and Sheila holidayed together at Treyarnon Bay in Cornwall in the early 1940s where Daphne’s ten-year-old son, Alexander, experienced what he subsequently described in his memoir as “my first self-consciously romantic relationship” with his mother’s 47-year-old friend. He continued:
Sheila was similar to Daphne in many ways: a coyly flirtatious brunette with straight shoulder length hair, and a warmly personal way of chatting and confiding, even with children, so that her subject was made to feel special and uniquely rewarded by her attention. The two of them would play a comic act with me. When I composed a short lyric, in grudging acceptance of the newly imposed war-time diet, (of animals trapped by our own gamekeepers) they would perform a little dance around me, singing out the words to me in silly girlish tones.
“Rabbits for lunch, rabbits for tea,
rabbits are good for you and me!”
I decided that I was in love with Sheila and, just before returning home, I found a stone which happened to be in the shape of a heart. Daphne was encouraging the liaison, so was happy to buy for me a small tin of glossy red paint, in which colour I immersed my “heart”. Then I wrapped it in brown paper, and left it on her doorstep as a valentine. On re-meeting Sheila some years later, she was to surprise me greatly by taking me upstairs to her bedroom and revealing how she still treasured this heart in a little casket, especially dedicated to its preservation.
The war years were a haze of fear and boredom for Sheila. She watched Plymouth being bombed in 1941 from the roof of a rented house called Jollywinds, cried with friends whose children and husbands were killed and practised shooting her revolver after listening to Churchill speeches—“I felt a strange stirring of pioneer blood bubble in my veins.”
There were near misses, once when she decided against going to the cinema in Plymouth only for the building to be bombed. She just missed being hit one evening while dining in the officers’ mess at an aerodrome, and on another occasion an incendiary bomb missed her car by a few feet. Her old home in Talbot Square was flattened during an air raid, killing all those inside.
There were also moments of determined resistance, Sheila often
visiting Emerald Cunard who was living on the seventh floor of the Dorchester where she continued to give luncheon and dinner parties during the air raids: “Sometimes one could hardly hear oneself speaking for the barking of the [antiaircraft] guns in Hyde Park,” Sheila remembered, adding: “Emerald remained unmoved.”
On another occasion, she agreed to go to London and attend a party at Ciro’s, the club she and Poppy Thursby once managed for a bet: “About 9 p.m. the bombs began to drop and the band disappeared,” she would write. “The noise was terrible and the room gloomy. I left the table, found the band sitting in the basement and asked them to come back and play, quite forgetting I was not still running the place. They returned and played loudly, slightly camouflaging the noise of the bombs and guns. We danced and felt quite gay. A bomb dropped near but Ciro’s escaped. One seemed so completely in the hands of fate.”
Fate played its hand in her favour on the night of March 8, 1941. She had been staying in London and was considering travelling to the home of a friend named Elizabeth outside the city, but was torn by an invitation to go to one of her favourite haunts, the Café de Paris, advertised as “the safest and gayest restaurant in town”, 20ft below ground, and where the singer and band leader Ken “Snakehips” Johnson was the main act: “I tossed a coin, heads Elizabeth and tails Café de Paris. It was heads,” she would recall.
Time magazine reported what happened that night as a German air raid enveloped the city:
The orchestra at London’s Café de Paris gaily played [The Andrews Sisters’ hit] “Oh, Johnny, Oh, Johnny, How You Can Love!” At the tables handsome flying Johnnies, naval Jacks in full dress, guardsmen, territorials, and just plain civics sat making conversational love. The service men were making the most of leave; the civilians were making the most of the lull in bombings of London.
Sheila Page 28